Jump A Little Lighter: Chapter 3

Read from the beginning here

---

“Is it strange to see yourself on TV?”

“You forget, I’ve been working with the media since I was nine years old. We all have!  There’s a community in Geneva, we…”

A pause.

It’s just a little giggle this time, and the hint of a squirm in her seat, but she’s so damn cute that even that seems like a game she’s playing with us, a subtle tease. She pushes the orange streak in her blonde hair back into place; it has artfully fallen. She knows how this makes her look more considered, more intelligent. More vulnerable. She used to use that trick in math class before she used it on the nation.

“I like seeing myself like this better. Like I’m showing who I really am, like I’ve taken that moment from my childhood and made it mean something. I really hope that by album three it’ll be a footnote in my life, something people discover about me after the fact. I want to be so full of depth that people are unsurprised to discover there’s something they don’t know about me.”

His sympathetic look fills the screen. She knots her hands together and pushes back in her seat, but it only accentuates her long legs and nice shoes.

“What do you think is one thing your fans don’t know about you?”

“Well… my biggest fans are my friends and family, so not a lot! I think I’m a pretty transparent person.”

“There must be something… the song you sing in the shower, your secret food craving… tell me something weird about Rosalita Jacobs.”

I think she’s right, there’s nothing she can say that I won’t know; she’s going to have to dig deep to find something that the fan forums and the Twitter stans and the teen magazines don’t know.

“Ok! That’s a challenge! Let me think of something y’all might want to know!”

I don’t know enough musical terms to describe her laugh – it is round and harmonious and sounds so genuine. I think she’s enjoying herself for real. She purses her lips and looks upwards in a performative thinking pose, rolling her eyes around the ceiling for just a couple of seconds as if she’s looking for inspiration, and then she makes a crinkly little smile.

‘OK, Steve!’

‘OK, Rosie!’ he laughs, a much more obvious laugh. ‘Can I call you Rosie?’ and now they’re both laughing, and the cameramen are ready for the 1-2 closeup switch and the focus on his reaction.

‘I wrote Not My Life in about 15 minutes, in orange highlighter pen. I did edit it after, but the first draft is definitely recognisable, if you can read my horrible Stabilo scrawl!’

‘Wow! That IS a good Rosalita fact, I feel like I know so much about you now! ORANGE. HIGHLIGHTER? This girl is something else. To take something we ALL OWN and use it to pen a hit single? Wow wow wow, I’m so impressed right now!”

And she’s just there, curling up at his effusive nothings into the back of her chair, with a big grin on her face.

***

Chapter 3: May 2017

The morning of my math exam I am holding my hands under the cheap dryer in the bathrooms. I breathe in sharply and raise my wrists to be closer to the biting heat in the vent, pushing the button again and again, longer than is needed.

I want to close my eyes, but I can see Lauren Coles making puking faces at her friends from the mirror. Brittany and Taylor are lapping it up, laughing as they do their lipgloss.

“What is your problem?”

“Um, obviously your friend ‘mia in there. Who is it anyway? Cause it’s not gonna fix her fat ass.’

“I prefer to think of it as a Byronesque approach to therapy.”

“Y’all Maplewood freaks are all the same.”

“Get fucked, Lauren.”

The door slams behind them, and I can’t help but say out loud, “They’re all gone, hon.”

Lexi Costas comes out of the stall. She rinses her mouth out with cold water a few times and looks up, into the mirror, but maybe through it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse before. Thanks for that.”

I shrug. “It’s nothing, you’d have done the same for me. Are you in Spanish today?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Math, this afternoon.”

“Oh it’s the AP exams? You’re gonna be so fine, your dad was an amazing teacher and you’re so calm and smart.”

She stops and looks at me, but I think she’s seeing somebody I used to be. I give my wrists a little rub where the hand dryer did its work and consider turning it on again.

“Did you burn yourself?”

“No. I mean, it won’t leave a mark this way.”

“I’m so nervous I can’t keep it in.”

I give her a half-smile. “All us Maplewood freaks are the same for sure.”

“Thanks Grace. I couldn’t face that this morning. Good luck!”

I think for a moment she’s gonna hug me, but thankfully she doesn’t. She just leaves, and I stand awkwardly looking after her for a couple of minutes until I can be sure we won’t be walking together.

---

Subscribe for future updates:

PLAYLIST OF SONGS

• [Alexis Jordan, Happiness]
• [Chainsmokers & Halsey, Closer]